Given the oppositional rhetoric that has characterized much critical championing of so-called post-Modernist photography, it’s more than a little ironic to find an exhibition of such work here, in the House of Lloyd. But the practice and rhetoric of post-Modernism have been taking distinctly different paths recently. While critics have spoken of this work as exemplifying Roland Barthes’ “death of the author,” the “authors” themselves have been busy achieving public prominence, lending themselves not just to exhibitions such as this one, but to advertisements and magazine covers as well.

In her catalogue essay, Abigail Solomon-Godeau characterizes these post-Modernist photographers as “clinical diagnosticians” of “the cultural body.” Insofar as they identify and isolate (and implicitly criticize) cultural clichés and stereotypes—the well-worn coins of conventional representation—they may be